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Stripping naked for the second time in a week within these walls, I set my clothes far enough away to keep them dry. Then, without another thought, I carry her into the waters without bothering to strip her down the rest of the way. Some parts of her clothes are melted into her skin. I can only hope that the springs will be enough.
A whine escapes her lips as I lower us into the water, and relief steals my breath. If she can register pain, or anything, really, then there must be hope.Right?
The dragon stays close enough to observe, its massive form towering over us, but it doesn’t try to move closer. There may be a way out of this after all.
“I don’t care how long it takes.” I’m surprised at the emotion choking my voice. “You will live. And you will explain this to me.”
Zaina doesn’t move, but the rise and fall of her chest becomes more prominent, the longer we’re in the water. I move my hand behind her head and I notice the smallest wince when my fingers graze a wet spot in her hair.
I pull it away and see blood. She must have hit her head somehow, too. I lower her into the water as much as I can, washing away soot and blood as I watch some of her wounds heal before my eyes.
Then, I hear myself echo the words from a moment ago.
“You will live,” I repeat. “You will not make me watch you die.”
Chapter Ten
Einar
Nothing should feel impossible anymore, but I’m still awed as I watch Zaina’s wounds close over and slowly heal.
We’ve been in the water for hours now, the dragon remaining a little too close for comfort. Its eyes follow each move I make as it waits to see what I will do next.
Seeing the beast at the festival is one thing. Being naked in its den while it stares down at me is something else entirely.
When the sound of Helga’s footsteps pad down the wet stone ground, I call out to her before she can round the corner and frighten or be frightened by the dragon.
“I have found Zaina, but she’s hurt. I have her in the springs now, but please don’t come any closer.”
Helga hesitates before asking a simple question.
“Has the ice melted?
I smile at her use of the code to make sure I am alone and unharmed, but it’s at odds with the dragon’s predatory growl. The beast shifts toward her.
“It’s getting there,” I call back hastily.
A sigh of relief is barely audible from the other side of the cave wall. When the retreating footsteps echo through the cave, I’m instantly more at ease.
Losing Helga or her brother isn’t something I can even stomach thinking about.
A wheeze draws my attention back to Zaina’s limp body in my arms. Her eyes are still closed, though her long, dark lashes flutter every so often. She still hasn’t woken up, but the longer we’re in here, the steadier her breathing becomes.
Another piece of charred flesh falls away from her leg, disintegrating into the illuminated blue-green waters. And just like before, fresh, shiny skin replaces the area that was burned.
The springs I visited growing up had some minor healing properties, in the way that you might feel less muscle soreness or notice a cut heal a little more quickly, but nothing like this. This must be the source of the rest of the springs, well-guarded by the dragon and far more potent than the ones it feeds into.
If only it could heal my people as easily as it does the woman who betrayed them.
I tried using water from the lesser springs, and it managed to only accelerate their symptoms. The healing property comes from its ability to promote cell regrowth. Ulla’s poison, though, changed my subjects on a cellular level. I shudder to think of how quickly I might have propelled them toward death -- or condemned them to life as the creatures they’re slowly changing into -- with the waters ofthisspring rather than the more diluted ones I used.
I wait a little while longer for the last of her wounds to close over and for her breathing to completely even out. She even begins to murmur nonsense in her sleep, her lips quivering with each word. I move her to the edge of the spring when one word stands out clearer than the rest, and I wonder if it’s nonsense after all.
Rose.
Icy rage washes over me at the time I’m spending here healing a woman who doesn’t deserve it rather than sitting at the side of the woman who was, for all intents and purposes, another mother for most of my life.
Sigrid is dying, and Zaina left with her only cure. I think about her explanation before, when she talked about a rose in her sleep. How long had it taken her to concoct that story about the sister who had died?
